


A Kiss, Then

by SunriseBirds



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Character Study, Complicated Relationships, First Time, Ghosts with benefits, Kissing, Lack of Communication, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Repression, Sexual Inexperience, emotional inexperience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28925328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunriseBirds/pseuds/SunriseBirds
Summary: “I have told you before,” the Captain said. “I have never been in love.”“I think, perhaps, if you can spend your entire life being in love without knowing what it means,” Thorne said. “Perhaps it is possible to know exactly what love is, without ever having experienced it.”The Captain stared at him. “That’s very eloquent,” he said.“I know,” Thorne said, sounding miserable about it.
Relationships: The Captain/Thomas Thorne
Comments: 13
Kudos: 130





	A Kiss, Then

**Author's Note:**

> 04/03/2021 - a month and a half after publishing the first chapter, it is finished. I've done some editing so (as always) I recommend reading the whole thing from the start.
> 
> Massive thanks to the BBC Ghosts NSFW Discord server for being hilarious, clever, inspiring, and providing a supportive little community that has genuinely made my days (and some of my nights!). Special thanks goes to my dear Uncle Lau.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented and left kudos! Much appreciated. Sadly I lost some of the comments when I re-posted as one chapter, but they live on forever in my heart.
> 
> Content warning for two repressed idiots and possible internalized homophobia on the Captain's part. This fic is very much a character study of both of these guys and their ideas of love, sex, and what they want from, uh, the afterlife. 
> 
> If you think additional warnings apply, please reach out.

It was yet another wedding.

The Captain supposed that at least this one was  _ very  _ well organized - zero crises, so far. He had supervised much of the setting up himself, of course, although his input was mostly ignored, even by those who  _ could  _ hear it. It caused him no joy to say so, but a fact was a fact - Alison would have made a poor soldier. She had no respect for rank and disobeyed orders more often than not. It was very lucky that she had him to guide her onto a better path. 

And he could admit, somewhat reluctantly, that he did enjoy the first wedding. It had been… special, not to mention exciting, what with the snow and the emergencies and the fistfighting. The issue was, it turned out that even weddings could get old, after the fifth or sixth one, especially when each one meant your entire house being turned upside down and filled with so many people, one was bound to walk right through you when you least expected.

So you see, it was not that he was completely against such things as social gatherings or parties, even dancing if the music was right, and if the war really  _ was _ over --

“It’s definitely over.”

“Is it, Alison? Is it truly? Or is it only a game, a ruse to lull us into a false sense of secu-”

“I’m not having this conversation again.“

\-- then yes, it would make sense to relax the rules  _ somewhat _ . That did not, however, mean that there were to be  _ no _ rules and that it was to be complete  _ chaos _ . It should not mean displacing one from his bed, his room, for an entire weekend.

This one was a small wedding party, but they had the idea of staying in the house overnight, for  _ two _ nights -- “the complete experience,” Alison had explained rather gleefully, “and they’re paying extra for it” -- and settling into the bedrooms,  _ their _ bedrooms. 

Alison and Michael spent an entire week going over all of the bedrooms for some last minute repairs and tidying. In the Captain’s opinion, they should have done that long ago: it was vital to keep a base, or indeed a house, in proper order. What if there was an invasion, or a fire, or another burglary? They would have stumbled over some rotting carpet or loose floorboard and died, and then it would have been two more ghosts and no more war documentaries.

But it was for this occasion that they finally went ahead and completed that task. The results were, the Captain didn’t mind saying, rather fetching. Oh, sure, there was minor drama when the whole operation unearthed some embarrassing personal things, long ago lost under beds and inside closets, causing Fanny to yell a lot and Kitty to weep a lot, but mostly everyone was too pleased to make a fuss.

Well, until they were promptly evicted from their rooms so the so-called “paying” guests could move in.

The Captain was an army man, of the firm belief that a strict schedule was  _ everything _ . For as long as he’d been alive - and dead - he had kept his own carefully planned schedule, only making the smallest alterations whenever it was absolutely necessary. For example, the war. And dying. The dying did make some changes inevitable.

2230 - lights out, bedtime. No talking in the halls and in the common rooms, everyone to their quarters, and absolutely no mischief. When this was  _ his _ base, they even had posters up, reminding people: this was how the enemy got you.

But now there were strangers sleeping in  _ his bed. _

To be fair, there were strangers sleeping in all of their beds. Alison and Michael were camped in sleeping bags in one of the inexplicable tiny rooms upstairs, having surrendered their own room to the bride and groom, and even Fanny had to settle for the best sofa in the ballroom, after  _ much _ protest. When Alison broke the news, Patrick had almost immediately, excitedly, brought up the idea of having a pajama party. “Well, no snacks, and, uh, no pajamas, but still, we can stay up late, tell ghost stories, or, oh well,  _ spooky  _ stories! It’ll be so much fun!” he had said, beaming. 

It was all fine until 2220 rolled around, that first night. The pajama party was in full swing in the kitchen, and seemed to involve a lot of shrieking. Even more shrieking than usual. There was an itch under the Captain’s collar that kept getting stronger as the evening wore on, until suddenly it was so strong he could no longer sit still. 

He tried patrolling, walking around the grounds and keeping an eye out for any intruders, but there was nothing interesting going on. The night was cool and utterly quiet, except for the laughter spilling out of the house, the voices of the living and of the dead. The Captain had the uncomfortable thought that, had he been alive and corporal, he would have felt uncomfortable, walking around alone in the dark.

That was how, at 2335, the Captain found himself heading for the library, where he was hoping to fold onto the window seat, close his eyes and put this night firmly behind him. It was good practice anyway, he thought; a soldier must be able to sleep anywhere, any time - get his rest however he can. This cheered him up some, and with renewed pep in his step he hurried up the stairs for the library.

His first mistake was not having a plan B in the first place. His second mistake was forgetting about Thorne.

Thorne, who did  _ not _ keep a schedule of any sort, and did tend to wander around aimless and purposeless at all hours of the day and night. Sure, the Captain liked his sleep, but he wasn’t dead, well, yes, he was, but he wasn’t  _ blind _ , and it was a commanding officer’s duty to know what was happening on base at all times. Thorne haunted (ha) the library fairly often, whether because he was the literary sort and thought it fitting, or because the window did offer some very nice lighting, which could, the Captain supposed, benefit a dramatic pose.

The worst of it was that Thorne had actually beaten him to it and was lying on the window seat, the one the Captain had been planning on. He looked a little funny, lying there, the Captain found himself thinking, standing in the doorway. The Captain supposed he had never seen Thorne sleeping - not like he made a habit of looking at the others when they were in their quarters. Bedrooms were private, whatever that meant in a house full of ghosts, one of whom in a constant state of undress. But he must have seen most of the other dozing off at one point or another, sprawled on some chair, chin drooping during a particularly boring afternoon. Not Thorne, though. He was always either bouncing around and talking nonsense at a million miles a minute, or else brooding, eyes looking far ahead at something only he could see, completely vulnerable to any potential attack.

Thorne was a slight sort of man, the kind who had no business going into duels or the army without some serious training and possibly a minor miracle (although his right hook was suspiciously, one might say _supernaturally_ , strong). Spread out on the seat, he looked kind of… delicate, which wasn’t a thing you were supposed to think about a man and certainly wasn’t something to aspire to, but Thorne did and it was… well, it suited him. It made the Captain annoyed to even have that thought - he rather blamed Thorne for causing him to have it.

Thorne was lying on his side, back to the door (really, it was a good thing he was already dead), his head propped in his hand, staring out of the window. His face was turned up, presumably towards the sky, and his profile was illuminated by the cold light of the moon. He seemed deep in thought - although when the Captain came in, he said, as if it was already on the tip of his tongue and without turning his head, “the stars are lovely tonight, are they not? As lovely as a lover’s eyes. Lovelier still, for their gaze is eternal and never fading, and even the most dedicated lover’s will eventually close forever.”

“Doesn’t look like I’ll get to close mine, tonight.”

Thorne jumped, or perhaps it was flailing - whatever it was, it was dramatic, not at all graceful, and rather satisfying to watch. He turned on the seat, one foot coming to the floor, as if he prepared to run away. His cheeks were a little red. “Oh, it’s... you.”

“Well, who did you think it was?” the Captain said, irritably. “Everyone else is still in the kitchen. You can hear them from literally anywhere on the grounds.”

At that Thorne sighed, flopping back down onto the seat. “Someone who, unlike you,  _ sir _ , can appreciate such a thing as the beauty of the natural world,” he said. “A romantic soul! A friend in the agonies and joys of the heart!” After some thought, he flung his arm over his face in a theatrical gesture, his fingers phasing right through the back wall.

“I can appreciate those things just fine,” the Captain replied. He was still standing in the doorway, which felt awkward, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing. Was this conversation going to continue? Were they actually having a conversation? He tried to think of some other place he could sleep. The itch at his collar seemed to be getting worse - he resisted pulling at it. “I just don’t have to  _ talk _ about it all time. Some things are  _ private _ , Thorne, and should be kept this way.”

Peeking from under his arm, Thorne said, “What use is love and passion, if we do not share it? God has created man to love, denying this is denying God himself.”

“Good lord, Thorne.” It appeared to be in the process of becoming a conversation. With a huff, the Captain moved fully into the room. There was nothing to sit on, though - all the chairs had been moved elsewhere, another one of the pleasures of weddings taking place in one’s house. After some hesitation, he sat down at the opposite end of the window seat. “I’m not saying don’t love! I just don’t see why you have to go on about it, or why  _ I _ have to hear about it.”

Thorne pulled himself up into a seat. “Have you ever loved, Captain? Truly loved,” he asked. “Madly, uncontrollably, until there was nothing else in your mind, no words on your tongue other than words of love?”

“No, I can’t say that I have.” The Captain, once again, felt like fidgeting.

It wasn’t a lie, strictly. For Thorne, love was the subject of poems, spoken of out loud and often, supposedly for the pleasure of others. For the Captain, for as long as he lived and even now in death, love was a complicated thing, even before there was a war on. Love was a secret, always cut short, always accompanied by fear and worry - one mistake and your whole life could be ruined. It was terrible, and exhilarating, and the Captain often wished he could forget all about it.

Thorne gasped. “That’s  _ horrible _ ,” he said, hand over his heart. “To have lived and died without ever feeling the glory of real love - oh, how I weep for you, sir.”

“No need, thank you,” said the Captain. “I did perfectly fine.”

“Please,” Thorne crossed his legs, skinny ankle over skinny ankle, leaning back. “I was here, you know! I saw how you were with Havers. You never said anything, and he was practically begging you to. We had a bet going on, on whether you would say anything.” He grimaced. “I lost.”

“That was and is still none of your business!” the Captain said hotly, gesturing at Thorne with his swagger stick. “And he was not!”

Thorne scoffed. “Yes, he  _ was _ ,” he said. “You must have been the only one who did not notice. The way you two were dancing around each other! It would have made for a great epic,” he sniffed, “if only I could write anything down.”

“It wasn’t like that,” the Captain said. “It couldn’t have been.”

“Why not?”

The Captain found himself staring at the wall in front of him. The wallpaper was peeling at one spot. It had been 80 years.

“There was someone else,” he blurted, immediately regretting it. Thorne leaned forward slightly, curios. “For lieutenant Havers,” he clarified. “I met them together, after the war.”

“Oh?”

The Captain rubbed at his knees. “Someone who served with him in Africa,” he said. “A young man. Younger man. They were well-suited.”

There was a moment of silence and then Thorne said, “I am sorry. I know all too well how it feels, a heart spurned.”

“Yes, well. It was a long time ago now. It’s fine. I told you, I did fine.”

Curiosity again. “Was there ever anyone else, then, for you?”

It was the Captain’s turn to scoff. “Of course! I said it was private, not that I was a, a, well,” he paused. “There were plenty of others. Just not during the war!”

There was real delight on Thorne’s face. It transformed it, taking away the too-serious pinch of his mouth and concentrated furrow of his brow. “My oh my, Captain! A real Don Juan, then? No surprise, I suppose, everyone does  _ love _ a man in uniform. I myself lost many potential partners to the charms of a uniform,” he lamented. “I would have liked to have seen it.” His cheeks were a little flushed. “Oh, I mean, that is, I would have liked to have seen you actually, well, engage, not like it was with-- right. I just mean, there is nothing more beautiful than a well-performed courtship.”

“There certainly was an art to it,” the Captain agreed, pleased. He liked this turn in the conversation. “You know, it wasn’t like it is now. You had to have a sharp eye, and you had to know how to, ah, make your advances.”

Thorne was still regarding him with his full attention, leaning in ever so slightly. This was perhaps their longest polite conversation in 5 years. “Yes?”

Warming to his subject, the Captain said, “You had to really make sure you were reading the situation right. You would have to pay very close attention to the other, uh, man’s reactions. The look in his eyes, his body language. You had to be careful. So I would start with something small, something that could be explained away. Like this,” he said, and very casually, as if there really might have been someone who could see, let one of his hands drop onto the seat right next to Thorne’s, brushing his fingers against Thorne’s and up the back of his hand in a gesture that could have been completely accidental.

Well, what do you know. He still had it.

“Oh,” Thorne was looking at their hands where they were placed next to one another on the seat, still touching ever so slightly. He didn’t move. There was a clock ticking somewhere inside the Captain’s mind, counting the seconds to… Something. “And then?”

The Captain cleared his throat. “Then, if it seemed right, I would move a little closer,” he shifted slightly, leaning sideways so that he was a bit more in Thorne’s space. Thorne didn’t look up from their hands, and he was very still. He really did have a pretty face, the Captain thought, when it wasn’t wearing some horrible expression. A little boyish, still, even with some silver in his hair. “And maybe, if the other person was sitting like a normal, well-behaved gentleman...” He tugged at one of Thorne’s crossed ankles, slightly, and after some hesitation, Thorne sat up, bringing his feet back onto the floor, his legs right alongside the Captain’s. “Here.”

Thorne’s eyes were fixed on their legs, side by side, as the Captain spread his just a little more, letting his knee knock into Thorne’s, his shoe against Thorne’s slipper. It was a game the Captain hadn’t played for a long, long time. The movements were so small, so careful, the sensations so slight, not nearly enough. Hoping, yearning, the stolen looks, trying to discern - should he stop, should he continue? Was he going to get socked in the face for his efforts, was the gamble worthwhile? There was a thrill to it the Captain had almost forgotten.

“It was not,” Thorne started, and stopped. After a moment, he said, “No one ever did these things for, um, with me. Not like this.”

“Right,” the Captain cleared his throat again. He felt like he was, perhaps, not quite sure what he was doing. “Well. Sometimes that was all it was.”

And other times?”

“If they seemed... interested,” the Captain said, and without overthinking it, brought his hand to Thorne’s thigh, right above the knee. Thorne gasped, his leg jumping slightly under the Captain’s hand. The Captain stared, transfixed, at his hand on Thorne’s thigh. 

The fabric of Thorne’s trousers was fine and smooth, and underneath it he was warm and solid, real in a way he shouldn’t have been. The Captain’s hand looked… big on his thigh, fingers curling towards the inside it, creasing the fabric. The Captain shifted his hand a little, looking as it moved as if it was someone else’s. It slid up, only a little bit. Thorne gasped again, this sharp barely-there sound that was so loud in the quiet room, and his head snapped up, finally meeting the Captain’s eyes. He looked a little dazed, a little flushed, the lines of his face softened, his mouth open in an O. It was, the Captain thought suddenly, involuntarily, a very kissable mouth.

The Captain hadn’t kissed anyone in a very, very long time. He remembered suddenly the last time he had, and the memory was bittersweet and tantalizing, a perfect aching contrast to the present moment.

“If they looked at me like that,” he said, his throat dry. “I would have probably kissed them.”

“A kiss,” Thorne said, small, and his eyes flicked downward.

“Well,” the Captain said, suddenly very sure of what he was going to do, and very sure it wasn’t going to end well.

He didn’t really have to lean in far to kiss Thorne. They were already sitting very close. It was just a small movement, and then his lips were pressed against Thorne’s. Thorne’s lips were a little dry, but they were warm and they were soft, and the Captain found himself groaning. He shifted slightly, his free hand coming up to curl against the back of Thorne’s head, fingers sinking into Thorne’s hair, and turning his head he pressed their lips together again at a better angle.

Thorne gave a full body shudder, and then he was kissing back, leaning into the Captain, fingers clutched in the stiff fabric of the Captain’s jacket. It was a bit like playing Twist-It with him had been - he was somewhat unpracticed, which gave the Captain a thrill he \wasn’t going to look into or ever admit, and he was pushy, and he made  _ noises _ . Anyone could have heard him, if they happened to walk by the door, which wasn’t even closed.

The Captain pushed right back, dropping the swagger stick onto the seat and bringing his other hand up to Thorne’s jaw, holding him still to be kissed. It seemed everything the Captain did made Thorne react in some way, a gasp or a shudder, a breathy moan when the Captain tilted his head just so and licked at his lower lip. It was the kind of thing you could lose yourself in.

It took the Captain a moment to realize they didn’t need to stop to breathe. It was a good thing, because he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to stop, not ever, not now that he was started. But. Well. He drew back slowly, reluctant, coming back in once at Thorne’s whine, to press another kiss to the corner of his mouth. Opening his eyes, he felt a flush of heat run through him at the sight of Thorne, his hair mussed and his lips red and raw, pupils blown wide.

“Right,” the Captain said, moving back slightly more. “A kiss, then.”

For the first time in the whole time the Captain had known him, it appeared Throne had nothing to say. The clock in the Captain’s head gave a very loud chime.

The Captain slowly untangled his hand from Thorne’s hair, and shifted back in his seat. Good lord, what has he done. He cleared his throat, once, twice. Thorne was still sitting there, his hands at his side, and he was obviously, visually, uh,  _ interested _ . The Captain felt an echoing throb, and had to forcefully repress the urge to adjust himself in his trousers.

“I think that I, uh,” he said, drawing a complete blank. Thorne still didn’t say anything - it was actually a little worrying, and annoying - of all the times to be silent! It was probably for the best though. One has to use every advantage to his benefit, any opening in the enemy's defense. In a volume that would later make him cringe, the Captain said, “I think I hear Patrick calling my name! Yes, Patrick, on my way! Probably something going wrong with the party, shouldn’t have left that lot to themselves in the first place.” When this elicited no response, he added, intelligently, “Good night!” and made a run for it.

Sometimes a strategic retreat was absolutely the best course of action, he thought as he marched away and out of the library, gaze straight ahead. He was sure if he did look back, he was going to stay, and he was going to give Thorne more than a kiss.

It was after midnight by then, and the lights  _ were  _ out, and there wasn’t  _ much _ talking -- even the ruckus in the kitchen had died down, it seemed -- but the Captain wasn’t comforted by it. It appeared that tonight, if the enemy had gotten any kind of foothold on the house, it was on his shoulders. Sighing, he slipped out of the house again, into the dark quiet of the night, setting up a patrol along the perimeter. 

He wasn’t going to sleep tonight, anyway.

  
  


By age 10, Thomas Thorne was an expert on love.

His sisters were older than him, and there were 5 of them. Their house was forever filled with noise and movement - slippered feet running up and down the stairs, ribbons lost and found, dresses stained and mended, letters coming and going, the latest gossip whispered back and forth, traded for yet more gossip.

They were, by all accounts, the prettiest, cleverest, most fashionable girls in their little town. When they went into a room, it was as if the sun itself had come in, its skirts swishing elegantly. Rarely did people notice the boy who would come in after them, trailing, wide-eyed and gangly.

But his sisters did notice him, and they doted on him. He was always a part of the game, always had a part in their plays, always invited to sit with them. “What do you think of this, Tommy?” they would ask. They dressed him up, chased him around, listened to his stories, but best of all, they shared with him their books.

If his father had been home more often, or his mother less occupied with keeping 5 spirited girls out of trouble, perhaps they would have protested some over the books that ended up stacked by his bed. 

At first, when he was still working on his letters, his sisters would read to him. ‘“Why are you laughing?” he would ask, curious, pulling on their sleeves, “Why are you crying?”. He would sit by their side and listen to their epic stories of princes and princesses, fine ladies and brave gentlemen, great heroes suffering terrible woes only to rise victorious, or die for some greater purpose. There were happy endings, so sweet they made the heart tender and full and aching, and sad endings, the kind that made them all gasp and wipe at their eyes. Then he was old enough to read on his own, and every book that was deemed worthy was ceremoniously passed to him. “A gift, Tommy, you are going to love this one!” And as he grew in height, so did his stack of books.

He knew all the right words to woo a lady. He knew how a hand ought to be held, how to gaze upon the eyes of a beloved, how to lay down his life and his honour to show her he was worthy of her. He knew how it felt, that sweet spark of pain when your eyes first fell on the woman of your dreams - knew it all too well, for, as he soon found out, the obstacles on the way to love were considerable, and beautiful women abound.

This was not how it felt when the Captain kissed him.

“Alison,” he was saying with some urgency, early the next morning. She was in the kitchen, making tea, still in her nightwear, her hair flattened to one side. She looked delectable, but he was  _ not  _ to be distracted. “I have a matter of great import to discuss with you.”

“Mmm? Can’t it wait, Thomas? I’m barely up.”

“It cannot,” he said. “I am in need of some advice, and there is no one else I could possibly confide in over such a… thing.”

Alison sighed, rubbing at her face. “Okay,” she said, and turned to face him. “What is it?”

Oh. He had not actually considered how to broach the subject. He found that his face was growing hot, which was most unusual and certain to be noticed by fair Alison. “Um,” he said.

“Thomas.”

“Yes, yes.” He shook himself, straightening his waistcoat. “Have you ever kissed someone whom you did not love?”

She groaned, turning away from him again. “Thomas, not this again. I’m married, you’re a ghost, not gonna happen in this lifetime.”

“No, no, that is not what I-- not in this lifetime, you say? Wait, no, do not distract me,” he circled to her other side. “Have you ever found yourself the subject of the, well, physical affections of one for whom you had no…” He gestured, futilely. “Special regard?”

She looked sideways at him, frowning a little. “Umm,” she said. “Where is this coming from?”

“I would prefer not to say.”

“Right,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “And you’re definitely, 100% not just being creepy?”

He gasped. Oh, how they could hurt you, the ones you loved. “I am insulted at the mere suggestion,” he said. “I am bearing my very soul to you.”

“Oh, fine. It depends what you mean,” she said. “But I suppose… yes.”

“Does that mean you might one day consid- no, you are right, that is not the point of the matter. I was led to believe,” he started, cautious. “Or, perhaps it had just never come up, but… I have always thought that the two go together.”

“What do you mean?”

When I first saw you, no, no, I am sorry, another example then,” he took a deep breath. “When I first saw Isabelle, she was so exquisitely beautiful, and then I heard her play -- what a gift! Like an angel descended from straight from the heav-- yes, I will hurry up. Well,” he deflated. “I just knew, with her. I would dream of her for weeks after each meeting, of her eyes, and her lips, her hair. She filled my mind so completely, day and night. And I never even got to kiss her.”

“Oh, Thomas,” Alison smiled up at him, a little sadly. “I know that feeling.”

“I just do not understand,” he said, frustrated. “How it could be so, so  _ similar  _ with someone whom I do not even  _ like _ .”

“Um, well,” she said, and turned to pour the water into the mugs. “I mean, it’s a weird sort of thing. You can find yourself really into someone who you can’t stand, and really  _ not  _ into someone you could swear you’re in love with.”

“But  _ how _ ?” he found himself asking,  _ very  _ slightly kicking his foot.

“I dunno,” she said, placing the mugs on a tray. “It’s just like that sometimes.” Then, taking a quick look at him, she added, “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s different now. You don’t have to get married to, you know, get jiggy with it without, like, destroying her reputation and future and bringing shame upon your houses. It’s okay to just have fun.”

“ _ Fun _ ?” he said, following her as she picked up the tray and left the room.

“Yeah,” she said, starting up the stairs. “Fun, Thomas. And if you want more details, you can go ask Julian.”

  
  


It was suspiciously easy to avoid Thorne the next day. 

As preparations for the wedding party started in earnest, the house was filled with staff and food and chatter, some excited and some more businesslike. They were bringing in more flowers, beautifully tasteful arrangements in vivid colors, and setting them in  _ all _ the wrong spots, but the Captain found he was too distracted to do anything about it. He was busy watching all doors and windows (and floors and walls), trying to make sure he was wherever Thorne was  _ not _ .

Then suddenly it was the afternoon, and the guests were arriving, and the Captain had not seen Thorne at all. It seemed he was not anywhere at all.

“Say, Fanny,” he found himself saying. They were watching the guests coming into the house, standing to the side just so to avoid being walked through. “Have you seen Thorne today?”

“Mmmm?” she said. “Oh, Look at that one! I couldn’t have had a scarf made with what she’s calling a dress. Thomas? No, I haven’t seen him today. Oh, look at him, have none of these people ever heard of a belt?”

How odd. Was Thorne… avoiding  _ him _ ? The Captain felt a sudden rush of irritation. “Of course,” he said, straightening up. “That’s just like him, skulking off to Lord knows where, doing Lord knows what, in the middle of an operation.”

“Quite right,” said Fanny, clearly not listening, her eyes trailing the guests as they made their way up the driveway and through the door.

Why would  _ Thorne _ be avoiding  _ him _ ? Thorne wasn’t the one who started this, the one who had-- had lost control, and made a fool of themselves. And the Captain had never known Thorne to shy away from these sorts of things; the whole rotten affair started because he wouldn’t shut up about the subject. 

Actually, perhaps Thorne  _ was _ the one who had started this whole mess. The Captain  _ had  _ warned him off. Well, he thought, fixing his tie. Why was  _ he _ avoiding  _ Thorne _ , then?

Only of course he knew exactly why he was avoiding Thorne. There was this feeling in his abdomen that was all too familiar, the kind that always lingered in him after such nights, usually souring whatever sweetness remained. It was a hot, sick sort of feeling, this terrible pressure somewhere just below and behind his gut, completely unrelated to digestion even back when he  _ had  _ any sort of digestion to speak of. He hated it, the way it sat so heavy and foregin where he couldn’t reach to pull it out.

But most of all he hated how even that wasn’t enough to suppress the rest of it, that pure  _ heat _ of want, the excitement that got him in trouble in the first place, heart pumping, fingers drumming. It had its hooks so deep in him.

All day he kept thinking back to the night before, even as he was checking every corner for a sign of Thorne. He remembered the way it felt, to have his hand on Thorne’s thigh, the muscles under his palm, the way they twitched when he drew his hand up. He kept having flashes of Thorne’s eyes, all pupil, and his mouth, messy and used.

It was infuriating.

“Captain,” someone was saying. “Captain. Captain!”

“What,” he said, somewhat faint. He cleared his throat and repeated, “What?”

Fanny wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and there were no more guests in the driveway, except for a few girls smoking and laughing. It was just the Captain by the door, and Patrick at his side, peering up at him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, perfectly fine.” He fixed his tie, then fixed it again, then made himself stop and put his hand down. “Shipshape and battle ready.”

Patrick looked at him dubiously. “You sure? You seemed kind of… somewhere else, for a minute.”

“Ah, well,” he said, and then couldn’t think of anything else to say. The clock behind him gave a loud chime. Off in the background he could hear some music, and people talking and laughing. Kitty zoomed past the entrance to the banqueting hall, singing, Mary trailing her, chattering on about cake. The Captain thought about how just yesterday, they were all downstairs together while he had kissed Thomas Thorne speechless. “Actually.”

“Yes?” Patrick fixed his glasses. He was all earnestness - the Captain found it both comforting and disturbing at once.

“This is very sensitive,” the Captain warned.

Patrick raised one hand and did some sort of salute. “Scout’s honour, Cap,” he said. “Whatever you say is safe with me.”

“Mmm.” How best to approach this? “Yesterday,” he started, and paused again.

“Yes?”

“I may have done something rash.” The Captain admitted. “I let my, uh, something get the better of me, and I did something that I-- wanted to do, very much, but hadn’t thought through.”

“Well,” said Patrick, thoughtfully. “How do you feel about it, now that you’ve thought about it some more?”

Great question. “Fine,” he said, automatically. Patrick gave him a look. “Good Lord, man, I don’t know! I still want to do it.”

Patrick hmmed. “Was there any harm done?”

“No,” he said, then immediately amended, “I don’t think so, but. These things usually end badly, though. They always did, before.”

“Well mate, if by before you mean ‘when I was alive’, I don’t know if the same rules still apply,” Patrick pointed out, rather reasonably. “We’re dead, and it’s been, like, 80 years, for you specifically.”

“Yes, but-”

Patrick cut him off. “If there’s no harm done, and it’s something you wanted,” he said. “Don’t give yourself such a hard time, Cap.” His face softened, and he brought one hand to the Captain’s shoulder. The Captain stood very, very still. “We all do things sometimes without thinking them through first. It’s okay to wait and see how things work out.”

“What if it works out very poorly?” The Captain asked.

“How much damage can you do? You’re a ghost. The only thing you can affect is us, and there’s not much you can do to us. We’re already dead.”

The Captain shifted uncomfortably. “There are other ways to hurt people, though.”

Patrick dropped his hand. “Look, those guys in the basement? They’ve been here together hundreds of years, more than you and me combined, and they’re still talking to one another,” he said. “They even forgave the guy who sort of killed them, yeah?”

“Yes, but-”

“Cap,” Patrick said, firm. “We’re your family. There’s  _ nothing  _ you can do or say that’ll change that.”

“Right,” the Captain said, faintly.

“Good,” Patrick said, cheerful. “Now, come on, they’re serving the starters, and there’s  _ tiny burgers _ . This you’ve got to see!”

  
  


When Thomas snuck back into the house, it was well past midnight, long after the sun had set over the lake, but there was still music coming from the garden, a strong beat filtering in through the open door at the back. There were some staff walking around, in and out of the banqueting room and the kitchen, but otherwise the ground floor was empty, only the detritus of a celebration remaining - empty bottles of champagne, someone’s scarf thrown over the back of a sofa, flowers slightly bowed in their vases.

There was a thundering of feet down the stairs, loud enough to hear over the music, and Thomas just managed to step to one side to avoid being run through. A young couple, laughing, their faces a little red, came down at a half-run. They were holding hands, talking loudly, and as Thomas looked they stopped at the bottom of the stairs and paused for a kiss. 

He felt his heart do something in his chest, something unnatural that surely a heart should not do. It was, to one looking from the side, a sweet sort of kiss. They were both still laughing, and it only lasted a moment, but that moment seemed to stretch honey-sweet between them. 

Slipping by them, he started up the stairs. It was only as he was coming into his room that he remembered the guests - they weren’t there at the moment, but there were clear signs of them around the room, from shoes sticking out beneath the bed to the paperback sitting on the bedside table, glasses folded neatly on the front cover. On the other side of the bed, someone had hung up a nightgown over the back of a chair. It was the picture of domesticity, to Thomas’s eyes.

He backed up and out of the room and, rather ridiculously considering he was a ghost, straight into another person.

“Ow,” said this other person.

Thomas turned around. “Captain,” he heard himself saying in surprise. “I did not see you there.”  _ Oh no _ , said some sensible voice in his mind. Another voice, which sounded disconcertingly like the Captain himself, said,  _ Thorne, please shut up _ .

The Captain seemed to be looking somewhere just to the left of his head. “Hard to spot a man when you are quite literally looking in the other direction,” he said. His mouth twisted in some expression Thomas could not read.

“My apologies,” he said.

The Captain didn’t answer. He still was not meeting Thomas’s gaze. He looked-- well, like he always did. A little too strict, too stiff, uncomfortable somehow. It instinctively made Thomas want to tease him, which then made Thomas himself uncomfortable.

He also had broad shoulders, and a handsome face, classically masculine and confident (regardless of whether that confidence was earned or not), the kind that would not be  _ very _ unlikely in a film. His uniform was a little loose, not as form-fitting as those of Thomas’s days, but, well, there were medals pinned to his jacket - surely symbols of bravery, heroics! Thomas had meant what he said the night before,  _ everyone _ did love a man in uniform. Someone who had sworn their lives away and dedicated their existence to the protection of others… It was the stuff of legends, brought to life. 

Thomas had a flash of that rough, scratchy fabric under his hands the night before, how the chest underneath felt, warm and solid, devoid of breath but alive in every other way that counted. The way feeling it against him sent shivers down his spine, lit a fire that warmed him through.

The Captain cleared his throat. It occured to Thomas that neither of them had spoken in a while. “Look, Thorne, I have been looking for you all day.”

Thomas frowned. “You have?”

“Yes,” the Captain gritted out. He paused, cleared his throat again, then said, “I-- I believe I owe you an apology.”

That was… unexpected. Thomas studied the Captain. “You wanted to see me?” he asked. 

“What? Yes, but that’s-- Look, Thorne, about the other night--”

“I admit,” Thomas said, slowly. “It was not something I had thought of, before.”

The Captain finally looked straight at him. “I shouldn’t have,” he said. “I--I didn’t--” he stopped, huffing out a breath. “It was rash and out of line, and I apologize.”

“Will you do it again?”

The Captain stared at him, mouth slightly agape. “Excuse me?”

Thoughtfully, Thomas lifted his right hand and reached across to run his fingers over the front of Captain’s jacket, where he had made a mess of it the night before. He thought of the Captain’s words in the library -  _ I would start with something small, something that could be explained away _ , he had said.  _ Then, if it seemed right, I would move a little closer _ . Thomas realized quite suddenly that he didn’t know what that meant,  _ if it seemed right _ , not in this context. He looked up from his hand and at the Captain, who was looking right back at him with the strangest expression on his face. Experimentally, watching the Captain’s face, Thomas dragged his hand up to the Captain’s collar, where he very deliberately smoothed away an imaginary crease and ever so slightly brushed his fingertips against the Captain’s neck.

There was a sharp intake of breath, so quiet Thomas could only hear it because they were standing so close.  _ Oh _ , he thought, and did it again. The corridor was long and dark and empty on either side of them and the music far away.

“Thorne,” the Captain said, warningly. He was looking at Thomas’s mouth, Thomas realized with a thrill of pleasure.

“Do it again,” he said, almost like a dare. He tightened his fingers in the Captain’s collar, tugging slightly. The Captain took a stumbling, almost drunk-like step, so that he was crowded right against Thomas, his body radiating warmth all along Thomas’s front. Still he made no move. He looked conflicted, even as his body was leaning into Thomas.  _ If it seemed right, _ indeed. Thomas could feel himself running out of patience. One day ago he did not even know he wanted this, whatever  _ this  _ was, but now that he has made up his mind, he found he could not -  _ would  _ not - wait. With some irritation, he tugged at the Captain’s jacket again, leaned in and captured his mouth.

It was like some spell had been broken. One moment the Captain was as still as a statue, an exasperating, mind-boggling statue, and the next he was kissing back and it was-- Thomas thought perhaps he had imagined it; the nighttime could play tricks on a man’s mind. But here was this stranger again in place of the ever-so-stiff Captain, kissing Thomas hungrily, wildly, almost feverishly. A large hand settled on Thomas’s side, holding him tightly, fingers digging in through the layers to press five spots of heat against muscle and flesh. 

Thomas found himself, embarrassingly, making  _ noises _ . It felt-- it was-- unbelievable. Nothing like he had ever dreamed of, not even like those few times he had-- but here there was no whispering of sweet nothings, sincerely meant or otherwise. There were no words at all to be uttered; Thomas’s mind felt blank, blissfully, strangely, worryingly empty of anything except  _ yes _ , and  _ more _ . There was only some steady drum, slowly building in the background, each beat like a maddening fever coursing through his body.

“Thorne,” the Captain was saying between kisses. Thomas pulled him in again, to silence him - all those years of listening to him go on and on, if only Thomas had known!. “Thorne,” the Captain said again, then again, “Thorne.”

Thomas was not short for breath, having no need for breath, but still he was panting, quite out of his mind with--  _ lust _ , oh, is that what it was? “What, what is it that  _ cannot wait _ \--”

The Captain tightened his hold on Thomas, who moaned  _ very  _ slightly, and pushed him right against the opposite wall. “Keep quiet,” he said, and shoved his hand right into Thomas’s trousers.

Thomas bucked off the wall - “ _ Quiet _ ,” the Captain scolded - and into the Captain’s hand, firm around his cock. He let his head thud against the wall, chin down, looking at where the Captain was jerking him, a little too rough, movement restrained by the fabric. The Captain’s hand was big and slightly calloused, not at all like Thomas’s own hands, and certainly nothing like the dainty, feminine hands of any lady Thomas had met.

Thomas released his fistfull of the Captain’s jacket to battle with the fastening of his trousers. The Captain was making impatient noises, and his other hand snaked around Thomas and up the back of his shirt - Thomas heard his stupid stick clatter to the floor - spread fingers spanning the back of Thomas’s ribs, nails dragging against the sensitive skin of his side. Thomas shivered, caught between pushing forward into the Captain’s fist and backwards, into the blunt press of his nails.

Finally he managed to undo his trousers enough to shove them out of the way along with his undergarment. Their heads were close, both of them looking at Thomas’s cock, pink and flushed against his belly, the head leaking over the curl of the Captain’s fingers. “Lord,” the Captain murmured, voice wrecked, and did something with his wrist that pulled a sob out of Thomas.

He could not say when it had happened, but suddenly his neck was bowed, forehead resting on the Captain’s shoulder, mouth open and gasping against the scratchy, musty front of his jacket. The Captain was working him in earnest now, steady pulls, the hand at Thomas’s back sliding down to the top of his arse, encouraging the movement of his hips. “Captain,” Thomas said, panting, all the non-existing air removed from his lungs. “ _ Please _ .”

“ _ Yes _ ,” the Captain said, “Come on now, Thorne.”

Thomas lifted his head, feeling as if it weighed a ton, and blindly leaned in for a kiss. He could hardly manage it - he felt like his entire body was on fire, wave upon wave of pleasure building up, almost too much, until suddenly it  _ was _ too much, and the entire thing crested and peaked and fell, like a tower of cards. He moaned into the Captain’s mouth, a long guttural sound, as the Captain jerked him through the last of it, the slide of his hand slick now with Thomas’s come.

The Captain gave a shuddering breath. He was looking down again, and Thomas dazedly turned also to watch as the Captain undid his own trousers and took himself in hand. Hello, Thomas thought, a little loopy. That’s another man’s cock, right there. It looked… hard, so hard it had to hurt, and the Captain’s movements were already jerky, whatever finesse he had possessed before gone and replaced with great urgency.

Is that for me?, Thomas thought, and, incredibly, ridiculously, felt himself flush. He felt mesmerized, watching, and was quite surprised when suddenly just looking was no longer  _ enough _ . “Can I-” he started, only that was just as ridiculous, and so he simply reached out and  _ touched _ .

“ _ Fuck _ ,” the Captain said, emphatically, as if he himself was also surprised. Thomas pulled him back in with a hand on his hip, fingers slipping through the open fly of his trousers and inside, brushing against his hip. His other one hand wrapped around the Captain’s own, moving along with it at a pace of the Captain’s choice. Thomas could feel a tremor running through the Captain, intensifying with every pull, and their hands were wet, and the Captain’s skin was hot, even a little sweaty, and Thomas could not remember the last time he had  _ sweat _ \--

The Captain’s entire body went rigid and still, except for these huge shudders that rocked through him. He was breathing hard, these almost silent, harsh breaths, like he'd just run for his life. Their hands were sticky and wet, and Thomas could not quite think what to do with his.

The Captain moved aside, collapsing onto the wall by Thomas's side. Thomas himself was leaning hard against the wall, his lower back sticking to it where the Captain had pulled his shirt up and out of his trousers. He felt warm all over, like he had fallen asleep in the sun, only it was completely internal - so perhaps more like his blood had turned to molten gold. It was intoxicating.

Next to him, the Captain was doing up his trousers and straightening his jacket up. Thomas wanted to say,  _ it will do that on its own in five minutes _ , only he found he could not open his mouth to speak.

"Right then," the Captain said. He was looking at the wall as he said it, and fixing his tie. Thomas had a thought out of nowhere, that he would like to grab that tie and  _ pull _ . The Captain glanced at him, then back at the wall. He cleared his throat. "I'll, uh, see you tomorrow, Thorne." Then, turning on his heels, he strode right down the corridor and out of sight.

Thomas slid a little more against the wall. He felt… It was… It seemed no words would come to his mind. He stayed there long enough for his clothes to slide back into place, his hand once again clean - except for the usual blood and ink - and still his head was spinning. “I have just,” he said to the empty corridor, trailing off. He tried again. “I am feeling…” But there was nothing on the tip of his tongue, not for as long as he stood there.

  
  


The days after the wedding saw everyone back in their own room, and the house more or less restored to its usual state. The Captain was sure once he had his room to himself again, some space of his own, he would-- calm down. But it was as if, once the door had been opened, it couldn’t be closed again. He found himself thinking about it at odd times - not even anything  _ lascivious _ . He’d be sitting through whatever activity Patrick has planned for the day, and suddenly he’d be thinking about combing his fingers through someone’s hair. Tracing a line on their open palm. Sitting together, knees touching, watching the sun go down over the lake. An easy sense of companionship, a simple sort of touch, no right or wrong words, a quiet certainty of belonging.

It wasn’t necessarily Thorne in those little fantasies, but it  _ was _ him in the ones that were, actually--  _ explicit _ . Kissing him, touching him, the way it felt and the voices he made - so loud, as if he couldn’t care less if anyone heard - kept coming back up, no matter how many times the Captain pushed these thoughts away. 

They had known each other for such a long time, had lived in the same house for decades - and it had  _ never  _ come up before. And yet suddenly Thorne’s familiar shape was transformed in the Captain’s mind, made to… to  _ do _ all sorts of things, an ever-evolving temptation of the Captain’s own making.

So the most unexpected thing wasn’t that it kept happening. It was  _ how _ it kept happening.

The second time, it was morning and Thorne was waiting for him by the entrance with Alison, who was timing the Captain’s run. The Captain came rushing through the open front door, already quite certain he hadn’t made any progress today. He felt distracted and out of balance, and it made him frustrated and short-tempered. Seeing Thorne there didn’t improve his mood at all. 

Alison turned the timer towards him. 2:30. “Sorry,” she said, closing the door after him. “But great effort?”

The Captain forced a smile that felt more like a grimace. Alison grimaced right back at him. At least they were a matching pair, he thought. “Thank you,” he said, as she brushed past him. He half expected Thorne to follow her, but he stayed right there by Dante’s old perch, not deigning to join the conversation.

“You’re welcome,” Alison said, and disappeared around the corner. He heard her calling “Better luck tomorrow!” on her way up the stairs.

The Captain looked at Thorne, then wished he hadn’t. He looked, well, the same as he always did, of course, so it made no sense that just looking at him sent a rush through the Captain. He was just standing there, not saying anything, only he was  _ looking  _ at the Captain in a way that was utterly open and obvious. He hoped Alison hadn’t noticed, but it seemed impossible - anyone with eyes would notice from a mile away.

The Captain moved slightly away from the door and from Thorne, almost to the doorway to the hall. “Thorne,” he said, a little cautiously. 

“Good morning, Captain,” Thorne replied. He was inching towards the Captain, possibly unaware that he was doing it. “I wish to speak with you.”

The Captain fidgeted. He felt like it was a concession that could be allowed at such a time. “... yes?” he asked, reluctantly.

Thorne was getting close now, close enough that the Captain could feel a phantom of body heat settling into his own body. “Look,” Thorne said. He frowned a little. “I would like to-- that is, if you are amenable, which I think you  _ are _ , we could do it again.”

Good lord. “Now, see here, Thorne,” the Captain said. He should move, put some distance between them. “You know that’s a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“You know why,” the Captain replied, impatient, yes, but certainly not  _ desperate _ . “There are a hundred reasons.”

Thorne looked at him. He seemed set to complain, only then he opened his mouth and said, barely lowering his voice, “It felt good. Wonderfully so. even. I liked it. You did, too.”

There  _ were _ a hundred reasons why they shouldn’t. There had always  _ been _ reasons, an overwhelming amount; it was impossible, it was… not wrong, maybe, but untenable. You had to have perfect control, the strongest resolve, to be a great soldier, and here were the Captain’s, fraying like the ancient curtains of Button House.

He  _ had  _ liked it.

Thorne was undeterred by his silence. “I have thought of little else,” he continued, oblivious. “It has been on my mind everyday and everynight. I keep thinking,” here he stopped for a moment. He was blushing slightly when he finished, “I keep thinking, I want to touch you.”

The Captain studied him. It felt like-- a practical joke of some kind, but Thorne had never been a particularly good liar, and his face was still wide-open. There was nothing in it of what the Captain was used to seeing in the faces of men like him. 

“Not here,” he said, finally. If it came out a little breathy, well, that was from his run.

“Oh, alright,” Thorne said, happy as a clam now that he’d gotten what he wanted, and allowed himself to be dragged bodily out of the house and into the old shed in the back garden, where, once upon a time, the Captain’s unit kept their heavy-duty work tools and cricket equipment.

That was the second time - possibly third, if you were to count that first kiss in the library. The third time was up against the wall again, late at night in the house, the Captain’s hand over Thorne’s open and gasping mouth. The fourth time was by the lake, the Captain guiding Thorne to thrust between his thighs, half out of his mind with the feeling of being pressed down into the muddy earth, the reeds around them swishing in the wind, no one around to hear them.

And it became more and more frequent, and with every time, the Captain was less sure of what was happening. He would press Thorne against the wall and reach for his trousers, only for Thorne to do something like unbutton the Captain’s jacket and slide a hand under his shirt. He would take care of Thorne and start on himself, only for Thorne to bat his hand away and replace it with his own, and kiss him, and moan at it. “Let me ,” Thorne would demand, still gasping from having just come. “Show me how,” he would say, of his own account. “Like this?” he would ask, and the Captain had  _ no choice  _ but to say yes.

Thorne preferred having a bed, and had to be reminded, frequently, that there were other people in the house, and that he had to be quiet. He wanted his clothes off, and he wanted the Captain to take  _ his own _ clothes off, even though they liked to pop right back on if you let them. He was pushy and demanding, and he liked sprawling in bed afterwards like he had no other place to be in the world, flushed all over, blissful while the Captain fidgeted, his mind racing, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Outside those  _ activities _ , little had changed. Thorne was still ridiculous, dramatic, often infuriating, incapable of following orders or listening to reason. They argued as much as they always did, and disagreed on anything from films to music to event decorations - 

“That is terribly drab,” Thorne would say, to which the Captain would reply, “It’s  _ understated _ , it’s  _ tasteful _ ”, which would cause Thorne to say, “It has no  _ colour _ ”, which would bring the Captain to grit out, “You wouldn’t know style if it shot you dead,  _ again _ ”, which was liable to send Thorne running out of the room, gasping and yammering, and win the Captain disapproving looks from everyone else.

Thorne seemed  _ designed  _ to get on the Captain’s nerve, except for when they were alone, and then the Captain could shut him up, have his full attention, make him pliant - if only for a little while.

The Captain was sure everyone must know. He tried keeping it under wraps, but It felt like there were a thousand eyes on him, seeing through his uniform and his skin and his bones right through to the ticking of his brain and heart. It was an itchy, anxious feeling that seemed, just like Thorne and this entire miserable situation, completely resilient to reason or logic.

“Are you alright?” Alison asked him one evening, cornering him by the window. He would have liked to say he had been watching the perimeter, but truthfully, he had been deep in thought. The light had climbed the fence and cleared the field, faded and vanished, and he had not noticed. He hadn’t even noticed Alison coming into the room. What a soldier, he thought, bitter.

“Of course,” he said, on reflex. “Merely…” he trailed off, gesturing at the window with his free hand. Finally he settled on, “... keeping watch. Have to stay alert. Who knows who’s out there, just waiting for us to let our guard down!”

“Right,” Alison said. She turned to look out of the window as well, and stood there for a moment without saying anything. The Captain kept glancing at her, caught himself bouncing in place, forced himself to stop, and did it again. Finally, she said, “Look, I know you’re pretty private, and I respect that. But I can tell something’s bothering you and I just wanted to say, you can talk to me about, like, anything, okay?”

“Okay,” the Captain echoed. She squinted at him, head tilted to one said. “Yes, fine, thank you,” he added, reluctantly.

“I know that opening up can be hard,” she continued. “I mean, some things are really hard to say out loud, but those are usually the things we need to say the most. And after it feels really good, like,” she let a big breath out, hand on her chest. “You’ve let something go.”

It was his turn to squint at her. “Are you trying to, uh, confide in me? Because I don’t think I’m th-”

She cut in. “ _ No _ , this is about you.” She rolled her eyes. “It wouldn’t kill you to express yourself once in a while.”

“One cannot perform his duties--”

“You don’t have any duties!” she said, voice slightly raised, and waved her arms at him. “You’re dead!”

“Well,” he said, affronted. “That may be so, but still I--  _ exist _ , and as such, I can still-- make mistakes, and act foolishly, and hurt others, and, and, hurt myself.”

“What are you two talking about?”

“Fanny,” Alison gave a sign and rubbed at her face. “Can you please, just-- This is a private conversation.”

“I’m not the one who was yelling just a moment ago,” Fanny said, moving out of the doorway and closer to the window. “A lady never raises her voice,” she said to Alison, severe, then turned to the Captain, “and a gentleman should never cause a lady to yell.”

The Captain didn’t know how to handle this situation. He had trained in the art of war and battle, had studied the newest technologies, had honed his body and his mind, but none of it had prepared him for Lady Button at that moment. She would have been useful in the war; the Germans wouldn’t have known what had hit them.

“Are we done here?” he asked Alison, twitching.

“Probably not!” Alison said. “Are you going to keep looking like someone is about to jump you at any moment of the day?”

“Yes, I have noticed that, as well,” Fanny added thoughtfully. “It’s unsettling.”

“I’m sorry you find me  _ unsettling _ ,” the Captain said. “I would leave, only I  _ can’t _ .”

“Don’t be absurd,” Fanny said. “You’re becoming as dramatic as Thomas.”

The Captain felt light-headed. Was it possible to be light-headed, when one was already dead? “Excuse me,” he said, faintly, outraged.

“I only meant, as I am sure Alison had as well, that you seem uneasy of late,” Fanny said. She did some fidgeting of her own. “And you have friends here who wish to see you, well--” she looked at Alison expectantly.

“Happy,” Alison said, as simple as anything. She was watching the Captain carefully when she asked, “What do you mean, harm others?”

“I was an officer of her Majesty’s army,” he said, automatically, wishing he could come back to life and shove himself right out of the window. “I have caused harm, directly or indirectly, to many, in the service of this great nation.”

“Captain,” Alison warned. “If you don’t want to talk about it, fine. But don’t be a jerk.”

He considered it. It felt like his heart was burning in his chest, fire-hot and painful. He  _ wanted _ to tell someone. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. But he had been silent for so many years. “Not yet,” he said, finally. “But thank you.”

Alison’s face softened. “Whenever you’re ready, Cap,” she said. “I’m here for you.” She smiled at him, a little sad, and moved away. When she was out of the room, Fanny leaned in and said, her voice quiet and serious, “No good comes from turning away from your truth.” She looked to the side, her gaze distant. “Trust me, I know.”

“Yes,” he said. There was a terrible lump in his throat.

“I admit I have not always been as,” she paused, looking pained. “O _ pen-minded _ as I perhaps should have. But I am coming to see that, there was a pressure put on us, back in the day, that caused many much unhappiness.”

He cleared his throat slightly. “There had been,” he agreed, quietly.

“Mmm,” Fanny straightened and smoothed down the front of her dress. “Times have changed while we’ve been dead. Oh, I’m the first to say, some of those changes have been for the worse! But,” at this she looked straight at him, her eyes shrewd with the wisdom of years he hadn’t lived. “Not all.” Her smile was small, and genuine, when she patted his arm. “Not all.”

  
  


Thomas Thorne loved love. He loved the idea of it, that two souls might belong to one another, might be two parts of the same  _ something _ , a grand design only God himself truly understood. Lovers were selfless, devoted, brave - they would lay down their lives and their honour, for the sake of their love. Lovers could never be lonely, for even when parted, they were together, always. To be loved was to be accepted, wholly and completely, and cherished over any other thing on earth.

He used to wait, anxiously, for that piercing arrow of love. “You are too young, Tommy,” his sisters would say, ruffling his hair. “Give it time.” One by one, his sisters were married. The matches were good; fine families with good fortunes. But did they love them? “It is not that simple, Tommy,” they said, kissing his cheek. “You will understand when you are grown.”

And he grew, and still he did not understand. “Love is simple,” he told his sisters earnestly, when he was visiting. They would be bouncing babies on their knees, sweet, chubby-cheeked things with wide eyes. Thomas would hold them sometimes, his little nephews and nieces, and sometimes they would scream and cry and he would not know what to do at all, but sometimes they would lay there in his arms, and look up at him, and he would feel this…  _ thing _ , this warmth that was too big for his body, that would spill out of him like sunshine.

The children got older, and Thomas loved and loved and loved. Love  _ was _ simple, and it was easy - it was not difficult to lose oneself in a pair of eyes, a smile, a loose curl. Women were sweet, or if they were not sweet, they were smart. If they were not smart, they were otherwise accomplished and talented. This one sang, this one painted. That one had the loveliest handwriting he had ever seen, any word seemed like poetry when she was holding the quill.

He dreamed about them at night, the sort of dreams where one thing fades into another, swirls of colour and sensation. The kind of dreams you could not tell anyone about. He dreamed about kissing their smiles, tucking away loose curls. He dreamed of their soft bodies, their pale skin, their arms around him, saying his name like it was more than just another name - “ _ Thomas _ ” - a sigh, a gasp, a revelation. He would wake up feverish, sweating through the bed linens, out of his mind with how sure he was - that love was out there, or on its way, just around the corner.

And so he loved and loved and loved, right until the moment he died, alone and waiting.

With the Captain, it was… different. He thought, perhaps he  _ was _ in love with the Captain. He had learned recently that it was possible to love  _ two _ different people at the same time, so could it be that he was in love with Alison  _ and _ the Captain, and had just not realized? Except as one fumble turned into two turned into three, he was forced to admit that whatever the thing was with the Captain, it was not quite like it was with Alison, or indeed with any other woman he had cared for, in life and in death.

In fact, he was convinced half of the time that he had dreamt up the entire thing, or was experiencing some sort of spiritual breakdown, brought on by his long spectral existence. The Captain was ridiculous and  _ exasperating _ . How could Thomas possibly  _ want _ him?

The other half of the time, Thomas was forced to admit that he  _ did _ want him. It made his heart pound in his chest and his hands curl into fists, how much he did. It was unbearable. He found himself waiting for the Captain at odd times and places, or noticing him from across the room, or sitting next to him during film club and thinking at him  _ kiss me kiss me touch me kiss me _ .

It was a good thing the Captain seemed amenable to doing just that. During those times, he was transformed. The ever-present stiffness, that air of discomfort always about him, disappeared, and were replaced by something Thomas could not name. If Thomas said “kiss me”, the Captain would do it, quite thoroughly, and when they parted he would be flushed and his lips would  _ look _ kissed, and the look in his eyes would leave no room for doubt that he  _ wanted _ Thomas.

That he wanted Thomas  _ back _ .

It was a heady thing. Whenever Thomas tried to place it within the sum of his experiences, he always fell short. It was a bit like being very drunk in very good company, but not quite. It reminded him of riding a horse very fast, but truthfully he had never liked riding for sport that much. It was not dissimilar to reading an excellent new book, the kind that had you staying late into the night and burning through too many candles, only--

The thing was, Thomas’s mind had always worked a certain way. Words came to him easy and quick, sometimes so quick that he was only aware of what they were as they were coming out his mouth. There was almost… a voice to his mind, speaking to him, that only grew and became louder as Thomas himself got older, and read, and learned new words and phrases. It was what allowed him to write as he had, of course, but still he could admit there was something frustrating to it. The voice was not always kind nor did it always have the best of timing. Quite often it would get so deafening that it would take over, or otherwise require an immediate distraction of some sort.

When the Captain was touching him, there was no voice. Or perhaps it was just so greatly reduced to the background, that it could not be heard at all over the sensations in the foreground. Thomas found his mind empty and blank, his focus so razor-sharp that he would have worried for his sanity, had the ability not forsaken him entirely.

He liked it when the Captain lay on top of him and pressed him into the bed, and everywhere they were touching he could  _ feel _ it - the Captain’s uniform, or better yet, his skin, the hair on his chest and his legs, the firm muscles under warm skin. Thomas liked dragging his palms up the Captain’s sides and down his back, and pressing onto his hips, the little dents his fingers left there. He liked being on top, too, pushing the Captain down onto the bed and watching his reactions, how he tried to hide them, pinning his wrists in place, feeling the tendons there strain against his palms. He liked using his mouth, most of all, for biting and kissing and licking and-- that, too, he had to convince the Captain to let him, but he  _ loved _ it. It was intoxicating, being so close, feeling another person  _ everywhere _ . It overwhelmed the senses until nothing was left but the act itself.

Afterwards, when they were done, he would feel pleasantly drunk, his entire body warm and relaxed, so much so that even the persistent reminder of the bullet wound was overshadowed. He enjoyed stretching out on the bed and observing the rush in his ears fade slowly, the tingling in his limbs settle into a soft buzz. This too was something he had to convince the Captain to allow - the bed, and the pause, after - although still more often than not the Captain would only lay there stiffly besides him for a minute or two before hurrying up and out of the room (usually his own room, funnily enough).

It bothered Thomas. Was he somehow lacking as a lover? No, that could not be it. He was eager to learn, and the Captain did not seem unsatisfied. He tried going faster -- "Good Lord," the Captain said, out of breath -- and going slower -- " _ Please _ ," the Captain said, and covered his face with his hands -- and harder -- " _ Thorne _ ," the Captain said, and pulled on his hair. Still the result was the same.

"I do not understand it," he found himself saying one time, watching the Captain getting dressed. He himself was feeling on the very edge of sleep. "How can you  _ hurry _ like this, after?"

The Captain huffed. He had his back to Thomas and was buttoning up his jacket. His back was nice and broad, Thomas thought, and flopped back onto the mattress with a sigh. "Can't laze about all day," the Captain said.

Thomas made a face at the ceiling. "If you stayed, we could go again in a bit," he tried.

"I think once a day is quite enough," the Captain said, stiffly, and ran out of the room as soon as he was decent.

This Thomas took as a personal challenge. He spent the next two weeks ambushing the Captain around the house and around the clock. He gave him looks during talks, and brushed against him going back and forth across rooms, and even, on a particularly boring day, recited a poem he knew to be extremely racy while staring at the Captain throughout.

"You have to stop," the Captain said, afterwards. He had done the ambushing that time, catching Thomas by the sleeve as he was wandering up the stairs and dragging him to a quiet corner. He had one hand down the back of Thomas's trousers and one thigh between Thomas's own, and it was so good Thomas thought he might die,  _ again _ .

"What," he gasped, pushing against the Captain's thigh. He leaned in for a kiss, but the Captain turned his head to the side and said, "You're being  _ obvious _ ."

"That is the point," Thomas said, and pulled on the Captain's jacket, urging him forward and kissing him himself. The Captain allowed it for a moment, a wet, sloppy sort of kiss, too much gasping for any sort of finesse, before he broke it.

"Do you want everyone to know?" He asked, exasperated.

Thomas was very close already, his clothes itchy against his skin and his mind shutting down, and he wished the Captain would just shut up. "I don't  _ care _ ," he said, "Just  _ touch me _ ."

Their record was four times in one day. Thomas was very pleased with it.

Still some doubt lingered. When he had been alive, if the subject had ever come up-- actually, he could not think what he would have done, if it had. Now, though, he found himself eager for some advice. Alison was out of the question, of course - it was no subject for a lady, and also she might think him inexperienced - as were Fanny and Kitty and possibly Mary, although Thomas was not ruling Mary out entirely quite yet; he was simply saving her as a  _ very _ last resort.

He tried Pat, first. “How can one know if they are pleasing enough to their lovers?” he asked him one morning, which caused Pat to choke on nothing for a bit and go very red.

“Well, Thomas,” he said, once he was sufficiently recovered. “The art of, uh, love is very delicate and complex! I’ve always found the secret to be open and loving communication. Sure, it can be a little hard, hearing the truth, sometimes, and the truth  _ is _ subjective, so when they tell you you sound like a dying cat, and why can’t you sound a little more manly, you might want to take that with a grain of salt! Especially since you might find out, years later, after you’ve died in a horrible accident, that they were getting off with your mate the entire time!” he paused for breath, fixing his glasses. Thomas inched backwards. More calmly, Pat finished, “But yes, loving communication is key. If you can’t talk about it, you have no business doing it!”

That was the opposite of useful. Thomas could barely talk to the Captain about the  _ weather _ without it turning into an argument. It seemed to him all talking was going to do was bring the entire thing to an end, which gave him a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He tried Robin next, hoping for a very different take, which was exactly what he got. “Do it,” Robin suggested, wiggling his eyebrows. Upon further prompting, he added, “If they no like, I find someone else. Lots of fish in water.”

If there had been more fish in the water -  _ sea _ \- then Thomas would not be in this situation at all. The only reason for the whole affair was that neither of them had a better option, was it not? This thought made the feeling in his stomach worse, and in general seemed to send his mind racing after unpleasant things. The next natural option would have been Julian, but Thomas found he did not have the energy for it.

Whatever it was, he thought, uncomfortable, it would pass on its own. He was-- having  _ fun _ , as Alison had called it. “It’s okay to just have fun,” he repeated to himself, and went off to find the Captain and some distraction.

  
  


The Captain allowed himself to be…  _ enamored  _ by a bed partner exactly once.

He was young then, unbelievably young - the kind of young one could hardly admit to ever being - just starting to lose the scrawniness that had haunted him as a boy and through the end of the great war.

He wasn’t a Captain back then, but it was one of their nicer nicknames for him, the other men who were training with him. That was alright: only very few of them were chosen to go to London that winter, and he was one of them. 

They were there for 3 weeks, for a series of lectures and a hands-on workshop with an American engineer, hosted by some university in cooperation with the army. That’s how he met him, the-- man, Jack. He was working with the guest lecturer at a big company in New York, doing incredibly exciting stuff, cutting-edge. He was there to assist, and to hand out cards - “Recruiter,” one of the university students had muttered to the rest, and they all straightened their backs and their jackets. The Captain and his fellow officers-in-training were already sitting as straight-backed as possible - at the very least the Captain was - but the Captain found himself almost glued to the back of his seat. He wasn’t too young to recognize the feeling he got just from looking at Jack walking around the room, smiling that particular dimpled, lopsided smile he had.

It started and ended like it always did. Only the middle part was different. 

They only had 3 weeks to start off, and by the time the Captain found himself in Jack’s bed, it was less than that. They had the classes, as well as appearances to keep up, but in between it was… it had been… Jack was older, certainly more experienced than the Captain, but it wasn’t experience that made him different. He was confident in the way of one who has already proved himself in the world; one who did not believe he had to hide, who wasn’t going to make himself small for anyone. The Captain was equal parts jealous and enthralled. 

“You’re so wonderful,” Jack would say, his voice low and his accent jarring, planting kisses on the Captain’s shoulder blades. “So pretty. Gonna make you mine.” And the Captain would say  _ yes _ , and  _ please _ , and he would lose himself in it so completely that towards the end it was getting difficult to find himself again.

“You’re a charmer,” Jack would say, when they were getting ready to leave the room, grinning and fixing the Captain’s tie for him, leaning in for a kiss. “Wish I could pack you up and take you back home with me.”

_ Please do _ , the Captain would think, dazed. 

He had been keeping his head down, studying hard - they called him Captain and it was fine, because he  _ was _ going to be a Captain one day, he was going to make a difference, he was going to make up for, well, sitting at home useless while others had made the ultimate sacrifice for king and country. But he couldn’t quite suppress them, the fantasies that Jack’s words planted in his brain. America, New York; a whole world away. Working along with the best minds in buildings that climbed up into the sky, on the most sophisticated projects, the kind that you read about in the papers, the kind that changed lives. A nice apartment, a nice closet full of smart suits. Dining in restaurants, dancing in clubs, maybe even the kind of club where two men could dance together…

He watched Jack during classes, his easy smiles, his conversations with the students. It’s impossible, he would tell himself, stern, but later, in Jack’s rented room, in his arms, he wondered -  _ was  _ it impossible? It was so-- nice, to be held.

3 week flew by the way they often do, when you don’t want them to. It was a long time ago now, hard to remember all the details. Who said the final goodbye, was there one last kiss? Except no, he remembered. He remembered it well, shaking Jack’s hand, how it was warm and familiar the same way his eyes were distant and formal, already moving onto the next in line to say goodbye.

It had been… Incredibly foolish. Later the Captain had been furious with himself, more than anything, for having allowed himself to be distracted from his studies. A once in a lifetime opportunity and he wasted it, all for a smile and a few meaningless words.

There were other men, after that, but he hadn’t allowed himself to be distracted in the same way. It was a long time afterwards that the second war came, and by then his time had run out, he just hadn’t known it yet.

Things with Thorne were getting out of hand in an entirely different way.

"Look, Thorne," the Captain tried saying, one morning when he happened upon Throne in the kitchen. Thorne appeared to be listening to the wireless, which was playing something…  _ loud _ . 

It was a unique occurrence not because they were alone, which had been happening quite often lately, and not even because they were alone in a room that was very much public, not just because of the _ little girl in the pantry _ , but because anyone might wander in at any point. They were also wearing all of their clothes, a less common occurrence as of late, and there was a table standing between them. Of course they could phase right through it, but the Captain found the  _ idea _ of the table comforting, like a well-maintained perimeter wall.

Thorne flapped a hand at him. "Shhh," he said, staring intently at the radio.

It was such a deeply annoying thing to do. The Captain looked at Thorne sitting there, a little hunched in the chair, with that familiar furrow between his eyebrows. “I’m done with you,” the Captain told him.

“ _ Shhhhh _ ,” Thorne said. The music was swelling, getting even louder. He clearly wasn’t paying attention. Well,  _ I  _ said it, the Captain thought, but standing there he could still feel that  _ itch _ , that crawling feeling of not-quite-right, as if he hadn’t said anything at all.

It got worse, in the sense that it didn’t actually get worse at all. It didn’t go away; it stayed with him, all the time, that too familiar weight. But it was unbearably bearable. He kept waiting for it to be too much, to break him in some way - this weakness, so unbecoming of an officer, everything he worked so hard to leave behind. He was sure that it was only a matter of time, and was almost looking forward to the moment it would finally happen and prove he was right, all along.

“Thorne,” he said, one night,  _ after  _ they’ve finished. Thorne was stretched out on the bed, still mostly naked, although of course there wasn’t a mark on him. You could still somehow tell, the Captain thought, uncomfortable, what they had been doing.

“Mmmm,” Thorne said, hands in his hair, eyes half-closed. His chest was rising and falling more slowly now, his skin smooth and soft everywhere from a life of leisure, the slight muscles of his shoulders shifting under it as he stretched.

“It’s time we stopped,” the Captain said, watching him for a reaction.

“Yes, I suppose,” Thorne replied. “It is quite late.”

The Captain felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. It was, surely, the relief, settling in. “Yes, well,” he said, starting to get up and reaching for his trousers. “I’m glad you agree.”

“Mmmm,” Thorne said. He didn’t make any move to leave; it was the Captain’s room. “I am falling asleep.”

The Captain stopped dressing and gave him a look. Thorne’s eyes were shut, though. “Not  _ here _ ,” the Captain said. Thorne didn’t budge. “Thorne, get  _ up _ . Go to your own room.”

“In a bit,” Thorne said, and flipped onto his side, turning his pale, skinny back and bottom to the Captain. The Captain stared at them, appalled. “You agreed,” he reminded Thorne. But Thorne didn’t say anything, and the Captain found himself irritated at wanting him to say anything at all. What did it matter, what Thorne did or did not say? It was enough that the Captain had made up his own mind. It was his decision to make, and he had made it.

A few days later, on a particularly quiet morning, Alison and Mike at work and everyone else scattered, Thorne had caught him in the corridor and pressed him up against the wall. “Thorne,” the Captain said, his hands at Thorne’s shoulder, as if to push him away.. “It’s not right.”

Thorne made a frustrated noise and stopped biting at the Captain’s neck. “I  _ know _ ,” he said. When he leaned back there was an expression on his face that seemed almost desperate. The Captain felt himself gaping back, and was trying to think of something to say (reassuring? Why should  _ he  _ be reassuring  _ Thorne _ ) when Thorne dropped to his knees and reached for the Captain’s fly.

“ _ Thorne _ ,” the Captain said, still holding onto his shoulders, his fingers digging in.

“Just…” Thorne said, an edge to his voice, and that was the last thing he said for a while. The Captain slid a hand into his hair and bit back a groan. After the Captain came, Thorne just stayed down there for a few long moments, his forehead pressed against the Captain’s thigh, gasping like he’d just come himself though he wasn’t even touching himself. When the Captain untangled his fingers from Thorne’s hair, he gave a full-body shudder and a moan, which was--

Ridiculous. The whole situation was ridiculous, and ill-advised and inappropriate. The Captain had maintained control through adolescence, war, his own  _ death _ , not to mention encounters with better-looking, better-behaved men, ones who didn’t look like a stick with a head and didn’t have a gaping bulletwound in their side. Men he had  _ liked _ . 

He couldn’t understand it, and he wasn’t going to. It was done. He just needed to get that through to Thorne, and then he would finally be able to…  _ rest _ .

This became yet another plan foiled by Thorne being entirely immune to reason. It was a few days later, and they were sitting on the sofa with Kitty between them, watching Julian and Robin argue loudly over Lord knows what, when Thorne told him, right over Kitty’s head, “I will come up to see you tonight.”

The Captain glared at him, also right over Kitty’s head. Standing by the sofa on Thorne’s other side, Fanny’s face was doing something distinctively Fanny, but she didn’t say anything and as the Captain looked she turned away. “You will  _ not _ ,” the Captain hissed at Thorne.

Thorne rolled his eyes at him and didn’t reply. In the background, Julian was going on about missiles now, and perhaps the Captain  _ did _ want to know what the argument was all about after all, but he took in exactly none of it. When they finally dispersed a while later, Thorne seemed to vanish into thin air before the Captain could talk some sense into him - the Captain wondered if perhaps this was some latent ability of Thorne, and what were the chances he himself might develop it.

He tried to avoid going to his quarters that evening, which only made him feel even more unsettled, which in turn made him angry. Anger was almost a relief - he could handle being angry at Thorne. When he came into his room and Thorne was already there, loitering by the window, anger made it easy to say, “Thorne, this will  _ not _ stand!”. It didn’t make it easy to react to Thorne’s  _ face _ , when he turned around and started advancing. “Thorne,” the Captain said,  _ not _ shaky, and took a step backwards.

Thorne stepped right against him, one of his long-fingered hands - useless, clean and  _ soft  _ \- coming to press against the Captain’s chest. The Captain looked at it spread there, transfixed, the feel of it searing him even through all his layers, and so he did not notice Thorne’s other hand coming to his jaw until it was tilting his head back up for a kiss.

Being kissed, the Captain had the thought that Thorne was no longer inexperienced, not at all. It was a slow kiss, Thorne brushing his lips against the Captain’s in almost-there touches that grew languidly into deep, sucking kisses. The Captain heard himself groaning, and realised he was holding onto Throne’s waist with a vice-grip, swagger stick digging into his palm.

Thorne kissed the corner of his mouth, a curious little touch that made the Captain gasp, and down the line of his jaw, almost soft against the delicate skin beneath his ear. “Come to bed,” Thorne said, quiet and strange. When he pulled back, his eyes were blazing, all pupils.

At the bed, Thorne maneuvered him, insultingly and breath-takingly casually, into sitting at the edge of the mattress. The Captain looked up at him, dizzy, as Thorne slid the buttons of his jacket open one at a time, then shoved it off his shoulders. “You  _ are  _ handsome,” he said, suddenly. The Captain gaped at him, but Thorne just slid his hands under the collar of the Captain’s shirt, fingers raising goosebumps all along his shoulders. “You look so good like this,” he said and, leaning in to kiss him again, climbed into his lap.

It was overwhelming. It had been overwhelming from the very start, from that first night in the library - but this was a different flavour of overwhelming. When the Captain kissed Thorne that first time, it was like reliving a memory, an imitation connected to reality with the barest of threads. This was nothing like a memory, at least not one the Captain had ever lived. There wasn’t any room for memory; the Captain was struggling just to hold on.

“I like putting my mouth on you,” Thorne was saying, somewhere in the vicinity of the Captain’s ribs. The Captain opened his eyes - had he closed them? - to stare at him. He was regarding the Captain with a hungry look in his eyes, running his hands up and down the Captain’s side, fingernails catching on the Captain’s skin, sending waves of pleasure through the Captain, making him almost shiver.

“Thorne,” the Captain said, only it came out as a gibberish when Thorne leaned in to actually  _ put his mouth  _ on the Captain. This isn’t right, a voice in the Captain’s head suggested, somewhat weakly. Thorne was pushing one of his legs up a little, the back of the Captain’s thigh and, the bottom of his arse, against Thorne’s shoulder. He was still dressed when the Captain was mostly exposed, trousers shoved down, jacket and shirt somewhere at the foot of the bed.

The Captain propped himself up on one elbow to look at him there. It was-- “Thorne,  _ damn it _ ” he said, breathless, and pulled at Thorne’s hair. Thorne moaned around the Captain’s cock, and came up. His lips were red and slick when he leaned in and kissed the Captain’s hipbone, then the other, the cold tip of his nose brushing the Captain’s stomach. “What are you  _ doing _ ,” the Captain said.

Thorne looked up at him then. There was still that wild look in his eyes from before, a sharp contrast to the way he was touching the Captain, which wasn’t sharp or wild at all, nor hurried or frantic, like many of their previous encounters. “I want to make you feel good,” Thorne said, nonsensically, and covered the Captain’s body with his own. He was skinny, all bones, but he still felt like a grounding weight against the Captain, every point of contact between them a bloom of sensation.

It did feel good. That was stupid - it had  _ all _ felt good. That was what--  _ sex _ was about.

“You are,” the Captain found himself saying anyway, slipping his hands down the back of Thorne’s trousers, cupping his arse and grinding up even though the fabric felt rough against his cock. He wanted to come so badly it was embarrassing. You would say anything, he thought, and said, “You do.”

“ _ Good _ ,” Thorne said, and reached down to take a hold of him, making him arch his spine in a way that was no good for men his age, and kissed him again and again, like he wanted to, like he couldn’t have enough, like there was no one else in the world. The Captain held onto him, held on, right up until the moment where he forgot he was  _ supposed  _ to hold on, or why.

  
  


His heart was racing. Beneath him the Captain was catching his breath, eyes half-closed. He was spread out on the bed so perfectly, his hands palms-up and still, his cock softening, all the awkward gone from his body. And Thomas had  _ done that _ . He wanted to press him right down into the mattress, to put his hands all over him, to rub against him, come all over him, make a mess out of him, but keep him soft, keep him warm, keep him dazed with pleasure, take his clothes off again and again when they popped back on, make him stay in that bed for the rest of forever.

He wanted-- he wanted to  _ want  _ to kiss the inside of his elbow.

Thomas rolled off of the Captain, flopping onto the mattress, then thought better of it and continued rolling right onto the floor. 

“What the bally hell, Thorne,” the Captain was saying from the bed. His voice was scratchy and rough, debauched.

Thomas stared at the ceiling. He could feel his heartbeat everywhere in his body at once - it was so strong it was like a shock every time, like being hit in the gut, a thud like the footsteps of a giant, coming nearer. He wondered if it could be felt everywhere else in the house, the beating of his worthless, useless heart.

“I have to go,” he told the ceiling. He wasn’t hard anymore; he felt so relieved about that he thought he might be sick. Scrambling to his feet, he threw himself right through the bedroom window. 

It was dark outside, and damp, and probably cold. Thomas shuffled away from the house and its light, until it really was very dark and he could not see much of anything. It felt fitting - it was only a shame he could not experience it in full, stumble over some rock, trip over a branch. Instead he kept walking steadily through the darkness, his breath harsh and loud in his ears, his shoulders hunched instinctively against the chill he could not actually feel.

The lake was quiet and still. There was faint starlight glinting off of the water. It was, in truth, rather lovely. Thomas stood at the water’s edge for a long moment, staring at it balefully. His heart was finally, finally slowing down, leaving him feeling shaky and exhausted. With the strange panic ebbing he could feel a familiar sadness creeping in. He sighed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” said someone to his left. Thomas nearly fell into the lake.

“Sorry,” Humphrey said once Thomas had dug him out of the bushes. Thomas set him down and took a seat by his side, glad the mud wouldn’t soak into his trousers, which  _ were  _ once one of his nicest pairs. He had wanted to look nice, that day.

“How long have you been there?”

“A couple of days,” Humphrey said. “Robin threw me from the garden. Surprisingly strong, that one. Just wish he had put nearly as much effort into finding me afterwards.”

Thomas grimaced at the water. He was so glad to have legs, he thought, then sighed again. Some problems seemed so easily solved.

“Are you okay?” Humphrey said.

“No,” Thomas replied.

Humphrey hmmed, then asked, “Is this about you and the Captain?”

Thomas glanced at him. “I did not realise you had noticed.”

“I think even Mike has noticed, at this point,” Humprey said. “Although you probably shouldn’t tell the Captain that.”

Thomas’s heart gave a sudden painful lurch. He shuddered. “Have I been very obvious, then?”

“Well,” Humphrey started, then, stopping, he frowned at him and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I have been…” Thomas said. “Bewitched. No, do not give me that look, sir! I do not mean by  _ the Captain _ . But by the  _ act _ itself. I had thought that I was,” he cleared his throat. “Having fun.”

“Right,” Humphrey said.

“And I was,” Thomas clarified. “It has been great… fun.”

Humphrey winced. “No details.”

“I had never been particularly interested in… fun,” Thomas continued, ignoring him. “But with every year that goes by, I feel it more strongly, the, well, the space where something should be, but is not. And with all these weddings, one after another. You know, I had never imagined that I would die a bachelor.”

“Thomas,” Humphrey said, quiet. 

Thomas cleared his throat. “Yes, well. It appears that there are quite a few things I never imagined. It turns out that one does not need to be loved to be wanted. It turns out that being wanted feels…” he cast about for the right word. The water of the lake lapped gently at the shore, unhelpful. “Nice,” he finally finished, lamely.

“So what is the problem?”

“I do not know,” Thomas said and sighed. “Oh, I do not just want  _ nice _ for the rest of forever! I have been so very, very foolish.” He bowed his head, feeling as if it was so heavy it was going to come rolling right off his shoulders and join Humphrey’s at the water’s edge. “I gave my heart blindly,” he said, then corrected, “Or rather the opposite. Wherever I saw beauty, I thought I saw love, until I could no longer tell them apart. Perhaps I never could.”

“The two can coincide,” Humphrey said, thoughtfully. “But it is true that they’re not one and the same, or mutually inclusive.”

“You do not understand,” Thomas said. “Even when love was very… ugly to me, I thought that was a beauty in and of itself. I thought being spurned, ignored, mocked - if it was for love, then it was worthwhile and meaningful, and right. I let people be…” he stopped, digging his fingers into his knees. “Very cruel to me, in the name of love.”

“Thomas,” Humphrey said. “Lift me up, will you?” He stayed silent while Thomas picked him up and spun him around, so that they were more or less eye-level, then said, “I am very sorry for what had been done to you.”

Thomas nearly dropped him. “Sorry!” he said, fumbling.

Humphrey rolled his eyes. “It’s fine,” he said. “Comes with the territory. Here, put me over there, please.” Thomas placed him on a rock, leaning one of his cheeks against the stone so that he wouldn’t roll away. “Thomas Thorne,” he said, grandly, from his perch. “You have been a fool, but you are learning and you are changing your ways. You are proving that by the very fact of this conversation, which we would not be having if you had  _ not _ changed. You are capable of a great deal more than you give yourself credit for, and you are going to use these capabilities to make a place for yourself in this little world that we share.” He paused, then added, “Please imagine the hand gestures. They would have added a lot.”

“I am sure they would have,” Thomas nodded, and discreetly wiped at his face with his sleeve.

“Thanks,” Humphrey said, then added, “I think love takes many shapes, you know. I do feel I can say that, well, I love you.”

Thomas gave him a wide-eyed stare.

“I mean  _ all _ of you,” Humphrey clarified, drily. “Oh, sure, you forget me places, you kick me far too often and rarely listen to anything I say, and I rather wish you would - we would all be happier for it. Probably if we had met when we were all alive, I would not stand any of you. But,” he paused, contemplative. “We are not alive.”

“I am no longer sure of your point,” Thomas informed him.

“It makes a difference, is what I’m saying,” Humphrey said. “We can’t pretend the situation is different from what it is, and dream about what has been and what has gone. Nothing comes of it. You will still be dreaming of the same thing in a hundred years time, and a hundred years from then. If we had met when we were alive, I would not like you, perhaps. I would have suffered through our meeting, and gone home to my family and friends and work, and I never would have seen you again. But we are not alive, and this has become my home, and you my family. I have learned to forgive you, even when you kick me, because our lives are forever intertwined, and I would rather not spend forever being mad.”

Thomas frowned. “It sounds like being held hostage,” he said.

Humphrey laughed. “I guess being a ghost and being held hostage is a lot alike,” he said. “The point is, stop waiting around, because this is  _ it _ , and it’s not all bad.”

Thomas mulled this over. “A lot of it is quite bad, though,” he said, finally. “None of it is what I wanted.”

“I do not think many people get exactly what they want, in life or in death,” Humphrey said. “And I say that having watched much of both. You do have a lot, though, and I don’t just mean a body.”

“It is nice to have a body,” Thomas agreed. He thought about the warmth of hands on his back, being wanted, being touched - and touching in return. He thought of the Captain and Havers, the look in the Captain’s eyes when he looked at Havers, and how at the time Thomas had thought it was terribly romantic, in a frustrating way, like something right out of a novel - wonderful except for how you couldn’t change the ending. He thought about how the Captain never said anything to Havers, never brushed his hand over Haver’s, never knocked their knees together, never played that particular game with him. It seemed incredibly strange to Thomas, suddenly, that the Captain had never kissed Havers, even though he would look at him like he wanted to give him the world, but that he did kiss Thomas, again and again, and much more besides.

“Oh, great,” Humphrey said, oblivious to Thomas’s spiraling thoughts. “Rub it in, why don’t you? Now use those arms and carry back to the house, please. I have had more than enough of this lake for the next century.”

The Captain wished he could say he hadn’t slept, after Thorne threw himself off the bed and out of the house, but he had - a deep, dreamless sleep, as restful as sleep ever got when one was a ghost. What they had done,  _ before  _ Thorne had lost his mind, left the Captain’s body at ease, regardless of the state of his mind. 

It was only very late in the night, morning almost, that he woke up and found himself unable to go back to sleep. He lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the house around him, his body as heavy as stone. It was a long time after, but still barely light out, that he heard someone say, uncertainly, “Knock knock” right outside of his door.

He sighed, and heaved himself into an upright position. He felt at once both well-rested and utterly exhausted. He knew very well who it was, of course, and he had half a mind to ignore it completely. Not just the knocking, but the whole thing - just never mention it again, pretend none of it had happened. Ignore Thorne right out of existence, if possible.

Instead he got up, and, facing the door, said, “Come in, Thorne.”

Thorne came in feet first, hand last. His face was drawn, and he stood just inside of the room, hands clasped awkwardly in front of him. The Captain looked at him expectantly, decided he had no idea  _ what _ he was expecting and turned his face to the window, where faint light was starting to show in the sky. Thorne didn’t say anything. The Captain sighed.

“Well,” he said, impatient. “Go on.”

“I wish to apologize,” Thorne said, which was so surprising that he forgot he wasn’t looking at him. Thorne was very clearly looking at the Captain’s shoes when he continued, “I believe I may have been… inattentive.”

Good Lord. “That’s,” the Captain said, faintly, “Not the-- Thank you for your concern, Thorne, but I have no complaints in that department.”

“What? Oh,” Thorne flapped his arms, flustered. “No, that is not what I meant! Although, if you-- no, no, that is  _ not _ what I came here to say,” he took a deep breath. “I meant to say, I have not been giving much thought to what you thought of this whole arrangement.”

“That’s fine,” the Captain said quickly.

“It is  _ not _ ,” Thorne insisted, finally dragging his eyes up to give him a stern look. “I-- We-- I am very sorry for what was done to you,” he said finally, and winced.

The Captain looked at him in confused horror. “Excuse me?”

“I wish I did love you, like that,” Thorne said, in a rush, and waved frantically for the Captain to let him finish, although the Captain was hardly going to interrupt - he had no idea what to say to that. “I have always wanted to be in love, and I so barely considered that I wanted to be loved in return. It seemed obvious that when I found the right woman, she would love me and I her - only, well. This entire...  _ thing _ , I have enjoyed it, you know I have. But I had never once considered at all that  _ you _ might wish to be loved, that  _ this _ was not what you have been waiting for, and I just,” he stopped, his mouth comically open for a moment, before finishing, “I am sorry if I had not listened to you when I should have.”

The Captain felt frozen in his own body. He stared at Thorne, who stared back at him, and watched in fascination as Thorne  _ fidgeted _ . Oh, he thought. That's what that looks like, from the outside.

“Well,” Thorne said, uncomfortable. “Are you going to say anything?”

“Thorne,” the Captain said. Thorne made an absolutely anguished face at him. “Thomas. You do know I am not in love with you?”

Thorne’s face looked even more anguished. “Yes,” he said. “I only meant, I wish we were. In love, that is. I wish we could give that to each other. I want to be in love,” he smiled, sadly. “I want it more than anything.”

“I have told you before,” the Captain said, haltingly. “I have never been in love.”

“I think, perhaps, if you can spend your entire life being in love without knowing what it means,” Thorne said. “Perhaps it is possible to know exactly what love is, without ever having experienced it.”

The Captain stared at him. “That’s very eloquent,” he said.

“I know,” Thorne said, sounding miserable about it. He looked back at the Captain from across the room. “What should we do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Should we… Stop?” Thorne asked.

The Captain’s knees, suddenly, felt like they were a thousand years old. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed. He was so tired, he thought, feeling it so strongly in his body that it nearly felt like being alive again - all those little aches and hurts of a living body, that meant the blood was still going, the nerves still firing, that you were still there, however inconvenient it might be for you.

"Probably," he said, only that wasn't right. "Yes." No, that wasn't right, either. "I don't--" he made a gesture that he hoped conveyed how he was feeling about this conversation. Thorne made the same gesture back at him. "I have no idea what we should or should not do," the Captain said, regaining his balance with a flash of clear annoyance.

"What does that mean?" Thorne asked, seeming bewildered.

"What do you  _ want _ me to say, Thorne?" the Captain replied. He rubbed at his knees, the damn creaky things that never allowed him to forget that he was getting, or had been getting  _ old _ . "One way or another, it's wrong. If not because we're both men, then because we're  _ dead _ , and  _ ghosts _ . If not because of that, then because we don't love each other, basically hate each other. We're just  _ using  _ each other, surely that's wrong, if nothing else."

"I might not hate you," Thorne said.

"We drive each mad," the Captain countered. "We can't agree on anything."

"Yes, that is true," Thorne said. There was a long silent moment during which the Captain stared at nothing and felt such a crushing weight bearing down on him that he was sure he was going to disintegrate. He sat there, waiting for it to start - this old form to crumble, fold in on itself, become nothing.

It was about to begin, he was sure of it, when Thorne said, "It was good, though." The Captain looked at him blankly. Thorne looked back. "I liked it. Going to bed with you," he clarified, unnecessarily. "Being touched, but also touching  _ you _ , making you feel good.”

"It didn't matter to you that it was  _ me _ ," the Captain said, sure of it.

Thorne made a frustrated noise. "I have no idea if it did or did not," he said.

“So you should pick your words more wisely, then,” the Captain replied. “You do call yourself a poet.”

"I am trying to do better, which you are making _ incredibly  _ difficult right now!" Thorne said.

“How am  _ I _ the one who is being difficult? You quite literally jumped out of the window last night!” the Captain gestured at the window. 

Thorne blushed but persisted. "I suppose I am  _ trying  _ to say that it matters to me  _ now _ , otherwise I would not be here," Thorne replied. He had a deeply confused look on his face when he added, "It matters to me if I hurt you, so that must mean  _ you _ matter to me, and I suppose that is a very  _ certain _ kind of love, and even if it is not what I wished for… I am grateful for it."

"So you're saying you love me," the Captain repeated. He wondered, briefly, if this was actually hell, and had been all this time.

"I am saying you matter to me," Thorne corrected, waving his arms around. "And if we continue, it would matter that it was you!” The Captain made a disbelieving sound, which caused Thorne to wave at him specifically. “Well, there is no one else here that I would consider, and with you I do not wish to stop. My god," he flopped into a chair, all limbs. "This is exhausting. Surely you can see - I have been after you like a dog, you must realise I do not wish to stop."

The Captain knew, suddenly, that he had very nearly succeeded. A push here, the right word there, and he would have done it - put an end to it. Everything will go back to normal, or as normal as it could be when one was a ghost; long repetitive days, nothing to look forward but things that happened around him - other people's weddings and celebrations. Living people coming in and making this house, his base, into a  _ home _ . He could almost feel the rush of relief at putting it all behind him, settling back into his routine, his schedule. Another year and another, nothing unexpected, no thrilling risk, no pressure in his stomach or too little air in his lungs, nothing to worry about and nothing to look forward to.

He was so very close to successfully slamming the lid of the coffin right back in his own face. 

All his life, for years and years, he had been so careful. It was a necessity, a way to survive the war of everyday life. He had been so very careful that he had given up all his chances, every single one, good or bad. This wasn't much of a chance, and it certainly wasn't a  _ good _ one. It was a wrong move. But there weren't any right moves left, and he was tired of staying still.

"Alright," he said.

Thorne stared at him, sitting up slightly in the chair. Cautiously he asked, “What did you say?”

“I said alright,” the Captain repeated. He felt light-headed again; he could feel very clearly how he wasn’t quite touching the bed at all. It was disorienting.

"Are you saying  _ yes _ ?"

The Captain cleared his throat. “Yes.” 

Thorne sprang up from the chair and did a little undignified dance. Watching him flail around the room, the Captain was so utterly unattracted to him at that moment that their entire discussion appeared moot. “Stop that,” he said.

“I will  _ not _ ,” Thorne replied, twirling in place. “I am--” he spun around again, and again, before finally saying, “I am  _ glad _ .”

“Oh,” the Captain said.

“I had told you I did not want to stop,” Thorne said, like he was being very dense, then he asked, “Shall we…?” He gestured towards the bed enthusiastically.

“What? No!” the Captain said. He got up, his knees giving a protesting creak, and straightened his jacket. "It’s  _ midday _ ," he said. “Honestly, Thorne, is there no end to your--”

Thorne rolled his eyes, interrupting him. “Oh fine,” he said. “I have said that I will do better with  _ listening _ . But I will ask you again, later.”

The Captain fixed his tie. The feeling was coming back into his body in a rush - their entire exchange over the last few minutes seemed like some strange dream, or something he had watched on the television. He looked at Throne, who still seemed mostly gleeful, if a little disappointed at not getting his way that very minute. I don’t understand you at all, he thought, and uncomfortably knew that he  _ did _ , in some ways, better than he understood any of the others. In another life, or afterlife, if things had gone just a little different for either of them, perhaps they would have been great friends, or-- 

But probably not.

“Later,” he said out loud, and herded Thorne out of the room. He needed some… space.

By the time Fanny came screaming down the east wing’s window, he felt more composed, if only marginally. Things did have a tendency to look less overwhelming in the light of day; this was something he remembered vividly from the years just after the second war, when he would wait for the sun to rise and drive the shadows back into their corners.

Walking downstairs he passed Kitty and Thorne in the hall, reading something and giggling. When he went by, Thorne looked up at him and-- smiled. It was a very silly sort of smile, a happy sort of smile, the kind of smile that made the Captain feel itchy. He nodded in return, but Thorne had already gone back to his book and to Kitty’s whispering.

He found Fanny in the garden, watching the swans. She gave him a tight smile when she saw him, a much more familiar version of the expression. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” he replied, coming to stand by her side. 

“Ridiculous birds,” she said, gesturing at the swans. “I used to get the gardener to chase them off, but they always returned.” She frowned at them. “I wonder if these are descended from the ones we used to have.”

“Fanny,” the Captain said.

“I should tell Alison to get rid of them,” Fanny mused. “George had always liked them.”

“Fanny,” the Captain said, and cleared his throat. She turned to him, raising her eyebrows. “Would you be amenable to-- that is, I would like to talk to you.”

“Oh,” she said.

“If you are not busy,” he added, then somehow opened his mouth and said, very clearly, “There are some things I would like to tell you, if that’s alright.”

“Oh,” she said again, and smiled, that small, secret smile he remembered from that evening with Alison, when she had said, in not as many words, that she wanted to see him happy. “Well, as it happens, I’m not busy at all.”

  
  
  


“I would like to stay,” Thomas said that night, after they had disentangled themselves. “For the night, I mean.”

There was a slight pause before the Captain said, “Alright.”

Thomas rolled to face him, and, after a moment of hesitation, put his hand on the bare skin of the Captain’s side, where he could see his chest expand with every breath, and how the rise-and-fall of it stuttered at the contact.  _ Ah, _ he thought,  _ If they seemed interested _ .

“And I would like,” he started, then stopped, feeling foolish; he had been practicing it all day. He tried again. “Would you like to stay? With me?”

He caught it when the Captain glanced over at him, but only because he was already looking. They lay there in silence for a long moment, the single point of contact between them Thomas’s hand light on the Captain’s ribs.

Finally the Captain cleared his throat. “Yes, alright,” he said.

Thomas smiled, and very deliberately leaned in, and kissed the inside of his elbow, where the skin was very thin, and the veins dark and blue.

A kiss, then.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments of any kind are deeply appreciated. You can also come find me on Tumblr @ SunriseBirds.


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